Excellent points. I'd add another: it's tough to imagine why anyone would want to deposit BTC with a bitcoin "bank" in the first place. All of the usual reasons (other than earning interest) for storing money with another party simply don't apply when it comes to BTC.

I hope you won't mind if I ask you to cite a real-world example of a legitimate BTC business operating as a fractional reserve "bank". I'd be very interested to see exactly how that was done.

You can't use bitcoin for fractional reserve banking; the system itself doesn't support it. Legislation banning fractional reserve banking in BTC is like legislation banning the sun from rising in the west.

Yeah? Well the IRS disagrees with you.

And without whiskey manufacture, most of the world would be speaking Gaelic by now.

Hopefully the great mass of irony in your statement squished your brain as it rolled out of your mouth.

How do you plan to measure this, exactly? I get your point that the end goal is competent adults, not test performance per se, but I've firsthand seen how my own kids can fail to get a concept well enough, and that leads to not getting the next concept, and so on. If you're not good at addition, you won't be good at multiplication, and so on through high school and you're just HOSED when you need to be good at trigonometry.

Come on, people. Science works. Things that work are...testable. If you're advocating some educational strategy, but reject the notion that it's testable, you're rejecting basic science. If that describes you, kindly keep your hands off education policy.

I don't think it's corruption, necessarily. Some people are just rabidly pro-Apple. Some people don't (yet) get that technology isn't an education silver bullet. When you get people who think technology is a silver bullet AND love Apple products, you get things like this.

...I thought that line was "... lock x-foils..." ?

I don't mind dealing with computers. I don't mind dealing with people. I hate dealing with computers that pretend to be people. "Wait a minute while I look that up for you." (pretend typing noise) NOOOOOO thanks. If people want a more human experience, they're saying they want actual humans, not computers that pretend to be humans.

The point of having it is very simply that people screw up eventually. Drive long enough, and you'll make a serious mistake. Most of the time, you'll come through it with no harm. Occasionally, you'll wreck your car. Occasionally, you'll kill someone. The point is also saving time. I don't have enough of it. If I could claim back the hour of my day I spend driving, that'd be great. The point is removing an unpleasant task. I have family 6 hours away I'd like to see more, but 6 hours in a car is unpleasant. If I could get in the car about midnight and wake up in their driveway at 6am, that'd be fantastic. Don't tell me to take the bus/plane/train, either. That's either more unpleasant or lots more expensive.

Keep in mind, this whole idea is predicated on developing cars that drive better than you do. If that doesn't happen, none of the rest does. It seems like the people who get all bent out of shape over the idea think we're going to put automated cars on the road that are WORSE at driving than people are. Why would we ever do that?

There's a lot of truth to what you say; your observations are among the reasons why I describe the situation as "sad'.

However, it is possible to work in teaching and not be subjected to the hardships you point out above. All the teachers I know personally love their jobs. Of course, they are fortunate enough to be employed by institutions that are insulated from a lot of the problems you mention.